Michael J. Rinella. Pharmakon: Plato, Drug Culture, and Identity in Ancient Athens. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2010.

This chapter deals with the genesis of architectural knowledge. In particular, it explores those rare moments when early modern English authors wrote about newly discovered examples of ancient architecture, the most important forms of architectural knowledge that existed. I will discuss three such accounts (all published in the Philosophical Transactions) of Roman York, Palmyra, and ancient Athens. These three texts share a preoccupation with truth and accuracy, as befitted the task of communicating highly sought-after architectural knowledge. They also demonstrate the degree of confidence of English writers in this period, not only in how they interpreted ancient architecture, but also in how they sought to criticize previous European authors on the subject. But most importantly, these texts reveal the extent of English intellectuals’ knowledge of the architectural principles of the ancient world and how that knowledge was in a state of flux.

Download Full-text

Ginsberg’s Prophetic Guru

10.1093/oso/9780198813279.003.0005 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Linda Freedman

Keyword(s):

Social Action ◽

Allen Ginsberg ◽

Drug Culture ◽

Integral Role ◽

American Poets ◽

Social Conservatism ◽

Social Freedoms

For Allen Ginsberg, Blake was more than a poetic influence, he was a spiritual forefather. Blake played an integral role in Ginsberg’s relentless self-fashioning and Ginsberg repeatedly turned to Blake in his search for poetic and social freedoms. Blake became a figurehead of the drug-fuelled psychedelic revolution of which Ginsberg was part. But Ginsberg’s Blakeanism went far beyond the claims of the drug culture towards a more serious and thoughtful poetic engagement with freedom and form, influence and authenticity. Like many of the older generation of American poets, Ginsberg yoked Blake together with Whitman. He saw them as icons of gay and homosocial culture, who debunked the prejudices of social conservatism and advocated an ethic of sexual openness and communality. Blake became an aid to a more affectionate re-envisioning of the myth of America, where tenderness and embrace were a means to positive social action.

Download Full-text

Epilogue

10.1093/oso/9780199651634.003.0012 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Erika Fischer-Lichte

Keyword(s):

Central Position ◽

Short Discussion ◽

German Culture ◽

Ancient Athens

The book concludes with an epilogue entitled ‘The Return of Dionysus. From Festive Performances to Global Spectacle’. It very briefly retraces the exchange of productions of Greek tragedies between Germany and other countries and ends with the role played by productions of Greek tragedies today, at German as well as international theatre festivals, thus linking them back to the most important festival in ancient Athens, the Great Dionysia. After explaining how such festivals in Germany reassert the central position held by theatre in German culture, the epilogue ends with a short discussion of Jan Fabre’s twenty-four-hour performance Mount Olympus—to Glorify the Cult of Tragedy (Berliner Festspiele, June 2015) as an allegory of and a reflection on Greek tragedy’s endurance on the German stage.

Download Full-text